St. Augustine officials say their voices were heard as 'citizen archaeology' bill stalls

Tuesday

Feb 9, 2016 at 10:12 PM

Stuart Korfhage

As the St. Augustine City Commission meeting wound down Monday night, the commissioners took a little time to celebrate what they considered positive news about Senate Bill 1054.

The Historic and Archaeological Artifacts bill, sometimes referred to as the "citizen archaeology bill," would require the Florida Department of State "to implement a program which will issue permits to the public performing excavations on sovereignty submerged lands."

Citizens would be required to pay $100 for a permit and to report all discoveries and removed artifacts to the state. But the permit holder would be granted ownership of the artifact.

The City Commission and many other groups have come out against the bill because they worry that precious artifacts will be removed for financial gain, ruining the historic information and academic value.

Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline, City Manager John Regan and several local archaeologists and academics recently went to Tallahassee to voice their concerns to lawmakers.

It seems that enough of them listened to the St. Augustine delegation, because the bill - and companion House Bill 0803 - are not slated to go to a vote.

"I happen to know people who are actually running that bill on the Senate side, so I made some phone calls and last Monday got a message from Sen. (Charles) Dean's office that the archaeology bill, based on our work as a city, was going to be temporarily postponed," Commissioner Todd Neville said during Monday's meeting.

"Without a co-sponsor, the House bill is likely going to die. Our archaeology community can feel much better right now."

Dean's office did confirm that the bill is "temporarily postponed" but offered no information about the long-term prospects of the bill.

"I am not going to exhale until March 11," Sikes-Kline said Monday, referring to the end of the legislative session. "It was a huge showdown. It was great to be part of something that we knew was really the right thing to do to stop the bill."

Sarah E. Miller, a faculty member of Flagler College's public archaeology department, was part of the local group opposed to the bill.

She said exploiting archaeology for the financial gain of a few would be a net loss for Florida. She said that at most sites only about 10 percent of artifacts are collected. That leaves more for study. Amateurs or treasure hunters would not be required to take such care.

"We don't actually want all the sites excavated," she said. "It is good preservation to leave them alone. We don't need all the stuff."

Having a concentrated voice coming from a city that just celebrated its 450th year of settlement could have helped the message have more effect, Sikes-Kline said.

She noted the fact that the city has an archaeologist on staff, Carl Halbirt, and an archaeological preservation ordinance that has protected potential artifacts since 1987. The ordinance requires all construction projects involving ground-penetrating activities to be evaluated for potential impacts to buried archaeological deposits.

"I think we were the most appropriate (group) to take the lead fighting the bill because of everything we stand for," Sikes-Kline said Tuesday. "It was a natural fit for us to take the bill head on. John (Regan) and I spent many hours in senators' and representatives' offices, talking with bill sponsors and educating them on why this would be harmful."

Regan said at Monday's meeting that St. Augustine was a powerful voice.

"The legislators wanted to know, 'What is the position of the City of St. Augustine?'" Regan said. "And Commissioner Sikes-Kline delivered it clearly and concisely and took no compromise.

"I've never been so proud to go to Tallahassee to affect a legislative outcome as this one. Because to be part of a small group with a strong sense of moral obligation that we carry at the state level and to get the work done, it was wonderful. We're not done."

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